January 06, 2013

Today Starbucks started off by disappointing me, but ended up deliciously surprising me. Love your new Blueberry Oatmeal! It's a winner.

Once again, the West Salem Starbucks didn't have any multigrain bagels by the noon'ish time I arrived for my regular Sunday get-together with some friends.

That always irritates me, since the only stuff health-conscious me likes to eat at Starbucks are the multigrain bagels and the oatmeal. But since I have oatmeal for breakfast every day but Sunday (when I make a gigantic whole grain pancake), I prefer the different'ness of the bagel.

Sounding as pathetic as possible, I told the barista, "Well... since you don't have any multigrain bagels, I'll take some oatmeal."

He cheerily replied, "Do you want to try the new blueberry oatmeal?" "Sure," I told him. I'd added freshly unfrozen blueberries to my pancake just a few hours earlier. But, hey, I like blueberries.

The steel cut oats, now blended with rolled oats, must account with the new let-sit-for-five-minutes instructions on the container, up from three minutes (after hot water is added). I dutifully checked my watch and waited the requisite time.

I enjoyed stirring in the whole blueberries, pouring the agave nectar over the oats, and sprinkling on the fruit, nut, and seed medley package. This is a big improvement, both health- and taste-wise, from the brown sugar, dried fruit, and a different nut mixture in the old rolled oats oatmeal.

Having paid with my iPhone's Starbucks app, I had no idea what the Blueberry Oatmeal cost. Overly optimistically, I sort of assumed it'd be the same price as the original oatmeal offering.

Checking my app just now, I found that a grande Pike Place and oatmeal cost me $1.10 more today than last Sunday. So that must be the price difference between the new and old oatmeal.

Almost certainly I'll continue to pay it. The Blueberry Oatmeal is worth an extra buck.

Good going, Starbucks. Hope you keep on adding healthier food choices. Your breakfast pastries could benefit from more whole-grain items than the single multigrain bagel. How about a whole-wheat scone?

The question has been pondered by mystics through the ages, but in the sanctuary of cinema the voice of a sonorous, authoritative, fear-inspiring yet sometimes relatable presence is, invariably, that of a man. Consider the trailer and the omniscient, disembodied voice that introduces moviegoers to a fictional world.

...Do moviegoers want to hear female voices? Research indicates that our brains are wired to prefer theirs to male ones; that’s the reason robotic voices, like those in GPS devices, tend to be female. (This probably has an evolutionary explanation: fetuses in the womb, identifying with their caretaker, can distinguish their mother’s voice from others, a study published in the journal Psychological Science found.) When it comes to credibility, however, research into the perceived believability of a voice — an important quality for the omniscient narrator of a trailer, as well as the spokesman or -woman for any product, which is the function a trailer serves — tells a different story.

“On average both males and females trust male voices more,” said Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford, noting some gender disparity exists in that women don’t distrust female voices as much as men distrust them. In one study conducted at Stanford two versions of the same video of a woman were presented to subjects: one had the low frequencies of the woman’s voice increased and the high frequencies reduced, the other vice versa. Consistently subjects perceived the deep voice to be smarter, more authoritative and more trustworthy.

My wife and I have noticed how true this is in relating with our dog, Serena.

A low voice seemingly is interpreted by her as a growl, which gets Serena's attention when we want her to obey a command; a high voice gets her tail wagging, maybe because it sounds akin to the excited "yipping" of dogs when they happily greet each other (we hear coyotes doing this in our rural neighborhood).

January 16, 2011

Last -- and most certainly least, though still worthy of remembrance -- the controversial key play in the 2010 BCS national championship game between should-have-won Oregon and Auburn.

Tomorrow is the one week anniversary of Auburn running back Michael Dyer's miraculous 37 yard jaunt down the field in the closing minutes of the game.

"Miraculous," because it sure looked like he was down after being tackled, yet upon urging from the Auburn sideline he came back to life and kept on running for an annoyingly long time.

So let us Duck fans remind ourselves of how the refs may have cheated Oregon out of a national championship.

And may our quacks of outrage upon viewing this video in a certain Oregoncentric light not sound like whines, even though if an Auburn fan had written this post in an alternative universe where the Ducks had won the BCS championship, I'd be echoing the video's closing message: DEAL WITH IT

(Note: my wife wanted me to clarify that I don't go to strip clubs. I just admire Oregon for being free to have so many of them. Also, to the online commenters who thought my piece was a satire -- it isn't.)

May 18, 2010

You'll see an Apture site bar
appear when you scroll down the page now. Try it out -- pretty cool. Highlight a word or words. Click on "search."
You'll get results from my blogs, Wikipedia, Google, You Tube, Amazon,
and more. Web sites found via a search can be browsed from within this
blog if you're using Safari or Chrome. Close the browsing window by clicking the "x"
and return to the post you were reading. You can share a post via Facebook,
Twitter, or email by clicking on the icons. Enjoy.

March 26, 2010

My wife sometimes says, "I'm glad I never had any kids of my own, because the way things are going, soon the world won't be livable for people." I understand her pessimism, given the crappy way we're treating the Earth and all the threats facing humanity.

But one day last week I had a string of experiences that made me think, "Maybe the Beatles were right: it really is getting better all the time."

In the evening I attended a fundraising event here in Salem sponsored by the Democratic Party of Marion County. Carl Wolfson, a talk radio host of Portland's progressive KPOJ, entertained the gathering with witty, inspiring, and humorous remarks.

Wolfson spoke about going to visit his conservative mother in Florida, where he said everybody in New Jersey is required to move when they hit 65. He went with his partner. After some pleasantries, his mother looked at the two of them and said, "Now, which of you is the gay guy?"

Great story. Lots of laughter. And a pointer toward how attitudes have changed in not so many years.

At my increasingly ripe age of 61, I can remember when nobody I was acquainted with openly acknowledged their homosexuality. It was known, but not talked about. In high school we joked about the "queers" who lived in my small town. They had no way to respond, because coming out wasn't a viable option.

So for me to sit in a room and hear Wolfson speak about his partner, and talk about how gays must have always been around, even in the 1950s, because someone had to design those fins that were put on cars -- it suddenly hit me how much societal attitudes toward gays have changed, for the better.

Earlier that day I was killing time at Salem's Toyota dealership, waiting for a side view mirror to be replaced after a deer had decided that it would be fun to run into my car. I got to chatting with the sales manager.

I commiserated with him about the excessively bad rap Toyota was getting for the unintended acceleration incidents, since some of them seemed to be caused (on purpose or accidentally) by the drivers, not faulty technology.

This led me to recall some car safety problems from the old days, such as the infamous exploding Ford Pinto. Which had been preceded by Ralph Nader's groundbreaking book, "Unsafe at Any Speed."

"In retrospect," I told the guy, "it's amazing that during my high school years I was driving around in a VW bug with not only no engine in the front to protect me in a collision, but also no seat belts."

Now we take seat belts, air bags, antilock breaks, traction control, and other safety features for granted. Just as Rachel Carson woke up the world to pesticide problems with her "Silent Spring," so was Nader instrumental in getting the automotive industry to save a whole bunch of lives.

So here too, things are getting better.

Then I went shopping at a grocery store. And took with me, as is my habit, a reusable bag. A few years ago I never anticipated that I'd be doing this. I'd noticed a few people at the natural food store bringing in cloth bags, but I continued to bring my groceries home in paper.

Until it finally hit me, along with lots of other people: reusable bags make sense. They hold more than paper or plastic bags. They don't rip. They're easier to carry.

Stores started selling them cheaply. Signs began to go up outside of groceries: "did you remember to bring your bag?" What once seemed weird became commonplace. Things got better.

It's easy to get disillusioned about all of the problems facing our country and the world. But it's also easy to remember how far we've come, how we've successfully dealt with social issues, how the present is an improvement from the past.

August 27, 2009

Some days I turn up more interesting Internet riches than others. Today was one of those days.

-- San Franciso Chronicle columnist Mark Morford runs hot and cold for me. But his writing style always is entertaining. I loved his tale of visiting a Vegas bar and coming to see lions and lionesses rather than a Dude and his mini-skirted admirers.

And there he is, the big male lion, strong and haggard and terrible, watching over his pride of lionesses and sniffing the air for potential adversaries who might dare threaten his leadership position, take his women and gobble up his portion of raw antelope thigh.

-- Nailed it! I wonder how many of the crazies who've been screaming "liar, liar!" at congresspeople who hold health care forums would get eight out of eight correct on a CNN Test Your Health Care Debate Knowledge quiz. I did.

-- I use a Macintosh now. Stories like this one in the New York Times make me so happy I'm no longer in the clutches of the evil Microsoft operating system. Apple's Snow Leopard upgrade is about to be introduced. I've got a copy on advance order with Amazon. $30. What a deal.

Either way, the big story here isn’t really Snow Leopard. It’s the radical concept of a software update that’s smaller, faster and better — instead of bigger, slower and more bloated. May the rest of the industry take the hint.

-- Finally! A reason to grow older than 60: I'm less likely to get swine flu than those otherwise annoyingly youthful young people.

-- According to the fascinating Social Security Administration baby name popularity site, "Brian" has been hanging in there at an 80'ish rank since I was born. Check out your name and see how unique you are.

-- I'm #1 on You Tube! In an admittedly rather obscure category. And not in terms of views yet, because my video only was posted a few days ago. But if someone is searching for "dog stalking chipmunk," our Serena is at the top of the results.

March 09, 2008

Browsing through a recent People magazine, my wife pointed out to me a series of double page ads for JC Penney's new American Living line.

Laurel was struck by the strangeness of people wanting to go around wearing clothing emblazoned with the American flag.

The American Living logo is a bald eagle flying off with the stars and stripes on a flag pole. This strikes me as against the flag code, but my Boy Scout days are so far in the past I can't remember if it mentions anything about a bird absconding with our national symbol.

Of course, all kinds of people wear the American flag (and I'm not complaining about this entirely appropriate use of it).

But there's something peculiar about how U.S. citizens enjoy flaunting the flag. I bet that if people from any other world power displayed the same pride in their flag, we'd decry such blatant jingoistic nationalism.

I haven't seen China's leaders with Chinese flag pins in their lapels. Ditto for Russia's, Britain's, Germany's, or France's leaders. I also haven't seen them posing on stages draped wall to wall with their country's flag.

And I'm prettysure that few of their female citizens would be seen walking around in a polo dress festooned with a nationalistic symbol – like the American Living line hopes to sell (disturbingly, some guys with zero fashion sense are going to buy this nightmare of a t-shirt).

I couldn't help but notice that the American Living clothing is imported. Apparently JC Penney and Ralph Lauren, who designed the line, enjoy irony.

They want you to wear the American flag. Which likely is made in China.

January 13, 2008

Ah, how things have changed. I remember when "Made in Japan" was a synonym for "Piece of Crap." Now two hybrid cars from the land of the rising sun, a Toyota Prius and a Highlander, are our trouble-free transportation.

And China? It used to be several large rungs below Japan in the quality category. Just a few years ago I never would have guessed that my new laptop would say "Made in China" on the bottom of it.

But it does. I just bought one of the first U.S. computers that are newly available in Lenovo's "IdeaPad" lineup. As I noted about a month ago, India had the cool IdeaPad Y510 first.

I was envious. It didn't take long, though, for the IdeaPad lineup to come on sale here. I got my 15 inch laptop from TigerDirect, which also is selling the Y710, a 17 inch powerhouse – especially the high end model.

It's been a pleasant two days with my new Chinese friend. We've communicated well, aside from a few mild language surprises when I perused the Y510 setup poster. Such as:

To bring you more convenience and make a better use of your computer, Lenovo provides a package of helpful software at purchase time.

The illustrations in this manual may differ from the actual product, please take the actual product as standard when you purchase.

Nothing that I can't understand. Yet how much trouble would it be for a Lenovo employee in China to email a draft of the setup poster to a U.S. colleague for a last minute language check?

That minor quibble aside, so far I like the Y510.

It's got the same great keyboard as my IBM ThinkPad Z60m (Lenovo bought IBM's personal computer division, but is continuing to use the IBM name for a while until people get used to the well-regarded ThinkPad as coming from China.)

The sound quality is far superior, though. The best I've heard from a laptop. I usually have to strain to hear the sound from DVDs on my ThinkPad, but when I used the Y510 to take a look at a dance instruction video that just came in the mail, the maxed-out volume was almost too loud for comfort.

The "infinity" screen is a bit of a disappointment, since it doesn't actually go all the way to the edge of the frame (it just lacks a bevel, or whatever the plastic thingie is called on most laptops).

And I'm having to get used to some Windows Vista Home Premium eccentricities after being familiar with XP Professional. For some reason it has this thing about wanting me to repeatedly confirm that I'm really myself when I try to change some system setting, even though I already logged in as Brian the Exalted Administrator.

Still, that doesn't bother me a whole lot because I've decided to embrace the love-hate relationship that I have with Windows.

I had an Apple II+ way back and stuck with Macintoshes for a long time. Then I crossed over to the Microsoft dark side and haven't returned. I thought about jumping to a Mac this laptop purchase time around, but decided that it's better to stick with the enemy I know, than the enemy I don't.

Meaning, I have friends and family with Macs, and their computing experience isn't trouble-free either. So I felt more comfortable getting a laptop that has familiar operating system quirks, recognizing that I might well be suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.

Hurt me more, Windows. It feels so good.

I haven't installed the package of helpful software that I got at purchase time. After I do, I'll have the option of using my face as a log-on via face recognition software and the built-in webcam.

Somehow I don't think that I'll want to look at a close-up of myself first thing in the morning when I turn on my computer. Still, it's a neat security feature.

Bottom line: check out the IdeaPad line if you're looking for a new laptop. The U.S. trade balance with China is already way out of whack, so you might as well have a Chinese computer in your home, along with tube socks.

Update: Just thought of a few other likes and dislikes. Like: the lack of annoying trial software. So far I've only had to uninstall Norton Antivirus, because I use SystemSuite 8 as a competent all-in-one security/maintenance package. I appreciate having a trial of Office 2007, since I'll probably end up buying it.

Dislike, sort of: the reflective screen, which is coffee shop unfriendly if overhead lights abound. The matte screen on my ThinkPad shows a fuzzy oval when I point it toward my office ceiling light; the Y510 IdeaPad reflects the light annoyingly clearly. Wish Lenovo offered an option on the screen, but I'll probably get used to it.

August 16, 2007

A triple threat blog post. Cleaning up my office today, I came across some must-share items.

You'll laugh. You'll be amazed. And befuddled. At least, I was when I read them.

"Share Our Joy" by Larry Doyle is one of those The New Yorker pieces that make me realize that if I have $50 left to my name, I could do a lot worse than spend it on a subscription to this always entertaining and informative magazine. Hugely humorous, Doyle is.

Also from The New Yorker, "Fragmentary Knowledge" is about what may be the world's first computer – the Antikythera Mechanism. It's at least two thousand years old, and way more sophisticated that you'd expect from the ancient Greeks. Made me think: we don't know it all, not even close.

Along those lines, "Where is the universe expanding to?" is a great question that I've spent quite a bit of time pondering. Scientists know that when the Big Bang banged, the universe began to expand. But into what? This answer in Scientific American befuddles as much as it explains, but that's the nature of cosmological reality – befuddling (quantum theory, even more so.)

July 15, 2007

Over on my other weblog I've been asked what I found wrong with Shotokan karate. A good question. I trained in this Japanese-based martial art for about nine years. Then I flew the Shotokan coop and earned a black belt in a less traditional mixed style after three-plus additional years of training.

Now I'm almost three years into an almost exclusive emphasis on Tai Chi – which most decidedly also is a marital art. Some would say the ultimate martial art. But who's to say?

The trend line of my martial arts philosophy was expressed in the title of my "I'm getting softer with age" post. I used to enjoy feeling, like most Shotokan practitioners do, that this hardest of the hard style karate systems could kick the butt of any other style.

But now I'm not into arguing about absolutes. Which is a big part of the reason I grew disenchanted with the absolutist mentality of Shotokan. Back in 2000, when I was thinking about shifting to a different style, I came across a web site called "Shotokan Planet."

[Update: Notwithstanding what I said below, Rob Redmond’s marvelous collection of Shotokan writings is still around in a different Internet incarnation. I searched for the articles mentioned below that I liked so much. Couldn’t find them. Redmond doesn’t have an explicit “heresy” section anymore.

It doesn't exist anymore. Unfortunately. Because I got a lot of inspiration and support from Rob Redmond's "heresy" essays. He expressed what I was feeling about Shotokan, but at the time wasn't able to put into words so clearly. Redmond said:

Did you know that most people who take a martial art think that the style that they study is the best one ever invented? Of course you did. If you are reading these documents, then you are probably studying Shotokan karate. You have probably heard many people make fun of Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, and Ninja Training. You've probably also encountered people from those arts that roll their eyes when you say something good about Shotokan.

So Ninja training is silly. I agree. But so is Shotokan training. Much of what we do is not applicable in the street anymore than what most martial arts teach. It is rigid, structured, and obsessed with good form. We'll teach it to anyone, even people too small and weak to ever be able to fight. We do lots of things which are inconsistent, nonsensical, and downright silly like a Ninja school. You should be aware of what these things are.

…If you can't find fault with Shotokan, then you haven't given it much thought. In fact, to me, it is axiomatic that if someone is a true expert at something, they will have many complaints and criticisms of the way things are in their field of expertise.

The more I learn about Shotokan, the less I like it. Every year that passes helps me to find new things that I am disappointed in. The more I progress, the more limitations of Shotokan become apparent to me. If you cannot see the inherent weaknesses and holes in whatever you are studying, you don't know much about it.

The main thing that turned me off about Shotokan was its rigidity – both physically and philosophically.

Tai Chi recognizes that everything is a blend of yin and yang, softness and hardness, yielding and strength. By contrast, traditional karate is way over-balanced on the yang side. Blocks, punches, and kicks are bone-crushingly powerful.

But power is just one aspect of fighting. It can be easily deflected or avoided, as was evident at every one of the Shotokan tournaments that I attended and took part in. Traditional karate is big on the idea of a single "killing blow." However, highly skilled Shotokan black belts could hardly ever demonstrate it in practice. So what good is an ideal that almost never manifests in reality?

[Update: Along these lines, I came across this right-on couple of paragraphs while browsing through Redmond’s current web site:

Meanwhile, someone who is relatively unskilled and nothing like an actual fighter, such as myself, can drape himself in these Japanese credentials on the walls and around his waist which allow him the self-delusion that he is in fact a real fighter - because someone else says so. Even though reality shows us that real fighters are men in incredible physical condition with bulging muscles, relatively aggressive dispositions, and cruel life histories, the delusion is so desired that the Japanese characters on the wall coupled with a little marketing about the effectiveness of Karate training leaves some of us believing that we have become professional assassins.

I believe that in reality we could put a case of beer in six big marines and push them in through the front door of any Karate headquarters in Tokyo and they would clean it out. While I don’t wish to see anyone injured, I think it would do wonders to break the nearly hypnotic belief that some have about their own fighting skills and the value of their pretty certificates hanging on their walls for some of the big names in Shotokan to finally come out of hiding and participate in some of the many open events that are held around the world and receive the solid defeats that they no doubt are aware they would be handed were they to dare to compete outside their own association’s events.]

After I became a Shotokan brown belt my rank advancement came to a halt. I kept testing to go to the next brown belt level (you have to get to the third before trying for a black belt). I kept being told that my sparring (fighting) skills were better than my kata (form) skills.

OK. Granted. But some of the criticisms of my basic Shotokan expertise were off-base – a product of looking at students through an assembly line, one-size-fits-all mentality. After failing a rank test I heard, "Your shoulders were too high; that's a sign of tension." A photo taken at the exam even was given to me as proof.

I went home, took my shirt off, got into the stance that I was in when the photo was taken, and looked at my shoulders in a mirror. Yes, they looked just like they were at the exam. I tried to relax them further. I couldn't. They were relaxed. I've got broad shoulders. My shoulders look different from most other guys' shoulders.

You'd think that an advanced Shotokan black belt, like all of the examiners were, would be able to take into account an individual difference like that. However, Shotokan isn't big on individuality. If you're a second degree black belt, then maybe, just maybe, you'll be allowed to tweak a move in a kata to better suit you.

Until then, though, it's the Shotokan way or the highway. Rob Redmond again:

You go to your instructor and tell him that you are no longer making progress, and that you are very frustrated. Your instructor will appear sympathetic, and to fill his piggy bank, he will recommend that you train even more. "You need more training." Hell, you should train until his corvette is paid for.

This bad advice also comes disguised as "Don't think, just do." Or how about, "Reading about it is one thing, doing it is another." Over the last century, a cult of anti-intelligence has swept the martial arts.

The last year of my Shotokan training I entered several tournaments. I was over 50 and a mere brown belt. But I'd go out and bang around in the freestyle kumite (sparring) with black belts, some much younger than me. I beat a twenty-something brown belt who was about to test for his black belt. I took a third-degree black belt (an instructor, no less) into an overtime period before finally losing a kumite match by half a point.

In the kata (form) competition, my Bassai Dai performance got a score equal to that earned by several black belts. So I was feeling pretty good about my advancement chances going into the next testing, where I hoped to finally make it to the second of the three brown belt levels.

Everything felt good during the testing. My basic kicks and punches were on. So was my semi-free sparring. Ditto, my kata. I didn't want the testing to end, I was enjoying myself so much. Then came time to stand at Shotokan attention and get feedback from the lead examiner.

He ripped me up one side and down the other. Per usual. Up to that point I'd cringe when I got negative comments at an exam. "Your shoulders are too high, your timing is off, blah, blah, blah." This time I calmly looked the examiner in the eye. I heard what he was saying, but it was like he was talking about someone else.

I knew what I was capable of doing with my karate skills. I knew that I was making good progress. The only problem was, what I was learning wasn't what Shotokan karate valued. It was something else.

Standing there, I didn't know that there was a more flexible mixed martial arts style that could take this "something else" and build on it. Shotokan was all that I knew, the only style that I'd ever trained in. But I came to learn that the world of martial arts is much larger than the territory Shotokan is comfortable exploring.

I read Rob Redmond and journeyed away from traditional karate, a decision I've never regretted.

The axiom should therefore be reprinted with a different line of text. Karate training that requires a lifetime is bad karate training. For every student, there is a time when training ends. For people who make their entire world revolve around a karate dojo, that time is death.

For everyone else who simply wishes to learn to take a different perspective on themselves, that time could be after six months or ten years, but the time eventually comes. Know when it has come, and have the courage to recognize it and do the right thing by yourself.

January 17, 2007

Here’s a hugely entertaining video, in the best “glad that wasn’t me” sense, of cars sliding down an ice-covered street yesterday in Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood. (Thanks to Blue Oregon for the link from Seattle’s KING-5).

Videos like this should put to rest the fiction that Oregonians are snow weenies. True, on the west side of the Cascades we usually get snowfalls that would be greeted with a yawn in Chicago, Minneapolis, or Denver.

But there’s a big difference in slipperiness between cold dry snow and snow that falls around the freezing mark—especially when freezing rain precedes the white stuff. Plus, we’ve got hills here.

Combine ice with a sloping street, add a car, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster, no matter how good a driver you are. (Interestingly, though, the last car shown in the video navigates a turn just fine. It looks like a high-end BMW to me. Sophisticated traction control and snow tires makes a big difference on ice.)

December 10, 2006

I bought my first Bratz recently. Looking over a Giving Tree at my athletic club, where Christmas present requests from needy children were hanging, just about every six to nine year old girl wanted a Bratz. So I headed off to Fred Meyer and entered a new doll world.

They’re a lot hotter and hipper than Barbie. More controversial, also, as a fascinating article in The New Yorker (“Little Hotties: Barbie’s new rivals”) discusses at length. These excerpts convey the essence of the Bratz appeal. And for many mothers, the fright.

"Bratz dolls have large heads and skinny bodies; their almond-shaped eyes are tilted upward at the edges and adorned with thick crescents of eyeshadow, and their lips are lush and pillowy, glossed to a candy-apple sheen and rimmed with dark lip liner. They look like pole dancers on their way to work at a gentlemen’s club.

…Bratz dolls don’t have Barbie’s pinup-girl measurements -- they’re not as busty and they’re shorter. But their outfits include halter tops, faux-fur armlets, and ankle-laced stiletto sandals, and they wear the sly, dozy expression of a party girl after one too many mojitos.

…You could never imagine a Bratz doll assuming any of the dozens of careers Barbie has pursued over the decades: not Business Executive or Surgeon or Summit Diplomat -- not even Pan Am Flight Attendant or Pet Doctor. Bratz girls seem more like kept girls, or girls trying to convert a stint on reality TV into a future as the new Ashlee or Lindsay or Paris."

The article says that Barbie was originally aimed at nine- to twelve-year-olds. Now, girls widely see it as a toy for three- to six- year olds. Many girls older than that like to destroy their Barbies. Like, in the microwave oven.

Why? The author of “Little Hotties,” Margaret Talbot, suggests that “Barbie now represents a ‘mommy figure’ for many girls, and they don’t particularly want to play with a doll who reminds them of their mothers.”

What seems to be driving the ascendancy of Bratz over Barbie, in large part, is the increased sexualization of young girls. In the old days “sassy” meant rude and disrespectful. Now, says Talbot:

What Bratz dolls are both contributing to and feeding on is a culture in which girls play at being "sassy" -- the toy industry’s favored euphemism for sexy -- and discard traditional toys at a younger age.

My daughter Celeste was born in 1972. When she and her friends started to play with dolls, a lot of them actually looked like chubby babies. I suppose you can still find dolls like that. But they’re not going to elicit screams of joy when opened on Christmas day.

In a few months I’m going to be a first-time grandfather. Celeste is going to have a girl. My daughter will have to decide whether to go the Bratz, Barbie, or whatever other doll route little girls want to travel on a few years from now.

This mother says, “you can’t say no to a Bratz doll forever.” I’m pretty sure my daughter won’t even try. After all, she lives in Hollywood. There most of the women you see on the sidewalk bear a decided resemblance to a Bratz or Barbie.

And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. As a man, you’d expect me to say that. But I have some scientific reasons for my “hottie is good” attitude that go beyond my inherent male chauvinistic pigness.

The November 30, 2006 New Scientist tells us why bonobos “Make Love, Not War.” The article says, “Humans, like chimps, are notoriously aggressive. So how come our other close relative, the bonobo, is so peaceable?”

There are a bunch of reasons. Not the least of which is sex.

"Bonobos are famous for it. Aside from the typical male/female activity, they also engage in more 'creative' behaviours: wet kissing, masturbation, oral sex, female/female and male/male couplings, group activities, the list goes on and on. The only restriction seems to be incest between mothers and their children.

Chimps by contrast restrict themselves almost entirely to male/female sex and don't have nearly as much of it as bonobos. What's more, males are dominant, frequently use food to lure females into having sex with them, and sometimes beat uncooperative females."

It looks like Britney and Madonna may be on to something.

That said, an over-sexed society has its problems. But so does an over-violent society. And if I had to choose one over the other, it’s obvious which way we should go.

December 01, 2006

Most computer software that I use is blandly functional, like Word and Outlook. Some of it is curse-worthy crap that I get rid of as soon as I can. And then there’s the sweet stuff: software that brings a smile.

Because it’s so beautifully designed. Because it does what it’s supposed to. Because it fixes a vexing problem caused by less praise-worthy software.

Here's what I’m currently in love with on my laptop.

Google. Lots to like here. I just downloaded Google Desktop after a lengthy absence. I had it on my old computer and decided to give it another try. Wise decision. The Desktop Sidebar is slick. And like most everything Googleish, works like a charm. My current gadgets are a clock, to-do list, email summary, scratch pad, and Wikipedia/Google quick search boxes.

The Desktop search functions seem much improved from the previous version. Now you have more control over what gets indexed. Deleted files can be omitted from search results if you like. When I just couldn’t remember where the heck some bit of info I wanted was—file, email, web site I’d visited?—Google Desktop has saved me from lots of fruitless searching.

Just as Google Page Creator has saved me from lots of frustration when I want to put up a simple web page. I’ve tried FrontPage. I’ve tried several supposedly “quick and easy” web site creation software packages. I’ve tried some other online services.

But this stealthy offering from Google Labs (it doesn’t yet appear in Google’s list of offerings) is the clear winner. If your web page/site needs aren’t complicated, Page Creator is the way to go. It’s intuitive and marvelously easy to use. I’m using it to put together a compendium of postings from my other blog (still under construction).

Lastly, Google’s Gmail was the solution to a vexing email problem. Our satellite Internet provider, WildBlue, has a ridiculously stingy policy on email storage and upload/download file sizes. I kept getting messages returned because an attachment was over 5 or 10 mb.

Now my wife and I forward our email addresses to separate Gmail accounts. Again, slick. No more worrying about Wild Blue’s stingy file size rules, because Gmail does the sending and receiving of messages. So far the Gmail service has never been down, something that, unfortunately, can’t be said of WildBlue.

RoboForm. Ah, what a beautiful piece of password-saving, form-filling software. If you’ve signed up with numerous password protected web sites, as I have, RoboForm is a must. I used to keep passwords written down in a Word file, which I’d print out for easy reference. But I had to worry about the security of the file (as well as the print out).

Now RoboForm is a trusted companion on my browser’s toolbar. It works equally well with Firefox and Explorer. RoboForm generates random passwords for you, saves them, and enters them on password-protected sites. All you have to do is remember a master password that opens the encrypted RoboForm file.

This program has never failed me. I wouldn’t know what to do without it now.

SystemSuite. The day I dumped Norton SystemWorks and embraced the SystemSuite collection of utilities (firewall, virus protection, optimization, recovery, etc.) was a happy moment. SystemWorks would screw up my computer almost as much as it protected it.

The last straw came when I upgraded to a new version and couldn’t install it because remnants of the old version were resisting being deleted. I asked for help from SystemWorks tech support and was directed to complicated instructions for going into the registry and manually deleting the recalcitrant files. Soon after I bought SystemSuite.

Another wise decision. It’s not flashy, but it does the job. I don’t hold my breath when I de-fragment my hard drive, like I used to with the Norton software. When I have a question I get an email response from the SystemSuite tech support people within a day. And the answer makes sense, unlike my experience with SystemWorks.

The SystemSuite 7 upgrade has been the only fly in my otherwise satisfied ointment. If you’re using version 7 and find that your computer has slowed to a crawl, hit ctrl-alt-delete and see if mxtask.exe is sucking up a prodigious amount of your CPU resources.

If it is, try shutting down the SystemSuite firewall and letting the Windows firewall protect you temporarily. When I did this, my computer went back to acting normal. SystemSuite has admitted to me that there is a problem and they hope to get it fixed soon.

Until they do, I’m using a trial version of the Sunbelt firewall and leaving the SystemSuite firewall off (I don’t trust the Windows firewall). I made the mistake of trying the free ZoneAlarm firewall for a few days. It worked for a while, then decided that it needed to protect me from my WildBlue internet connection that, until then, it had correctly identified as an approved firewall passer through.

In the course of researching this problem, I came across a disturbingly extensive ZoneAlarm Gripes page. This is a program that causes too many frowns rather than smiles. My advice is, don’t install the free version.

Just start typing anywhere and you’re typing into the search box. Cool. No click and type.

Do a web page search and some images often will pop up on the right side. No need to do a separate image search. Nice. (But my “Brian Hines” search revealed a guy who doesn’t look a whole lot like me.)

Get to the end of the first ten search results, click on “more web pages,” and bingo!, there they are. Ten more scroll into view. No waiting for a new page to load. Lovely.

Google, if this is the direction you’re heading, keep it up. Don’t know how you’re going to make money without ads, but this frequent search engine user is willing to pay you a few bucks a year to keep SearchMash ad free.

And thanks for throwing in an unexpected SearchMash gift. Just now I visited the site and saw a hitherto unseen invitation to explore common searches by other users. “Why not?” I told myself.

Exploring away, on its own SearchMash offered up this page. Sweet. It’s almost as if SearchMash could read my male mind. Maybe that’s Google’s next technical breakthrough. If so, a lot of women are going to be grateful.

September 17, 2006

I thought it’d be fun to head on over to NewsOK to see how Oklahoma Sooner fans were taking their team’s one point loss to Oregon yesterday. Just as I expected, they’re pissed.

In fairness, they’ve got good reason. Aside from the fact that an Oregon player sure seemed to touch the on-side kick before it went ten yards, video shows an Oklahoma guy picking up the ball when it squirted out of the pile.

Hate to say it, but it looks like Oregon got away with a win that it didn’t deserve. Still, it’s a win. Go Ducks!

August 31, 2006

Lifespan-wise, I had some good news and bad news today. After reading about the Eons web site in TIME’s “New tricks for living past 96” article, I answered the questions on their longevity calculator.

The article said, “the longevity calculator is what has given the website traction.” It must be popular, as it took a long time for their site to bring up a new page. After I clicked on the final button I was left in suspense for what seemed like, well, eons.

What if the calculator said that I’d likely only live to 58? I’m going to be that age in just five weeks. Should I order that convertible Mini and try to cram in as much living as possible pronto? I felt like my life was hanging by a slow-server thread.

Whew! My Eons birthday cake had a “95” on it. Not bad, though the article says that living to 96 is a typical finding for boomers.

Well, I would have gotten there if I hadn’t checked “no calcium supplements” (even though I drink orange juice and soy milk with extra calcium every day) and “do take iron supplement” (even though the amount in my daily vitamin is small and I don’t eat meat).

So with a little fudging that gets me 96.5 years. Great! I can wait a few more years before I start to seriously embrace my end-of-life crisis.

Which brings me to the bad news. Stupidly, today I also read a New York Times article: “Live Long? Die Young? Answer Isn’t Just in Genes.” The title seemed innocuous enough, but as I dug into the piece I began to feel less and less confident about my Eons-promised 95 year lifespan.

For scientists are learning that life is much more of a crap shoot than spuriously precise longevity calculators make it out to be. Identical twins, who share the same genetic heritage, on average die 10 years apart. Only 3 percent of how long you live compared to the average person can be explained by how long your parents lived. The article says:

The likely reason is that life span is determined by such a complex mix of events that there is no accurate predicting for individuals. The factors include genetic predispositions, disease, nutrition, a woman’s health during pregnancy, subtle injuries and accidents and simply chance events, like a randomly occurring mutation in a gene of a cell that ultimately leads to cancer.

The result is that old people can appear to be struck down for many reasons, or for what looks like almost no reason at all, just chance. Some may be more vulnerable than others, and over all, it is clear that the most fragile are likely to die first. But there are still those among the fragile who somehow live on and on. And there are seemingly healthy people who die suddenly.

Not so great. Damn the New York Times! My 95 years of promised life now looked a lot more precarious.

Oh, well. I’ll still try to slather on the sunscreen more regularly, which Eons says could add a quarter of a year to my life expectancy. That will balance out my continuing to drink caffeinated coffee. Supposedly this is chopping three months off of my lifespan, but I think Eons has its facts wrong here.

Anyway, I need somewhere to go when I get my convertible Mini. Cruising in to Starbucks for a non-fat grande vanilla latte on a warm sunny day with the top down sure seems like it’ll be life enhancing.

Now I just need to convince my wife of that. The convertible Mini part, I mean.

August 19, 2006

I dearly hope that someone will take this idea for a “Follow Up” website and run with it all the way to Internet stardom. Wouldn’t you visit a site that kept track of stories that fall off the media-frenzy radar before the final chapter is written? (to mix metaphors)

I sure would. Consider these “what ever happened with…” examples:

--What ever happened with the investigation into the shelling of the UN observer outpost on the Israel-Lebanon border? At first Kofi Annan accused the IDF of deliberately targeting the outpost. The Israelis claimed it was an innocent mistake, notwithstanding repeated urgent calls to them from the UN force to stop the bombing. I haven’t seen any follow up stories on this incident.

--What ever happened with the inquiry into the attack on the car that was carrying the Italian journalist who had just been freed from her Iraqi captors? American troops fired on the car, even though the Italians claimed that advance notice had been given to those manning the checkpoint. An investigation was supposed to get to the bottom of why a bodyguard (as I recall) was killed. I’ve never seen any mention of it.

--What ever happened with the killing of many Iraqis in a remote province who locals said were innocent people celebrating a wedding, and the U.S. said were insurgents planning dastardly deeds? I don’t remember the details of this attack, but it caught my attention at the time. The Army promised to find out what really happened. I assumed Iraq war reporters then would tell us. Guess I assumed wrong.

There needs to be a better balance between the sensational beginning of a dramatic story, and the low-key fizzling out of subsequent details that often are more important than the tantalizing first impressions.

Recently Fox News splashed “Terror suspects caught with 1,000 cell phones” all over their red, white, and blue telecast. When it turned out that the Muslim guys were just trying to make a few bucks by re-selling the phones and had no connection with any terrorist organizations, I didn’t see nearly as big a follow up splash.

So some enterprising web-savvy news junkie needs to get moving with my great idea. If he or she wants to call it the Hines Follow Up Report, I won’t object. And if 10% of the advertising revenues flow my way, I really won’t object.

Unfortunately, FollowUp.com already is taken. Good name, but not at all what I’m looking for.

June 06, 2006

[June 15 update: I just heard from Denise, the Lenovo customer service representative who has been considering my complaint. She agreed to send me $200, the amount of the rebate that I would have gotten if I'd bought my Z60m ThinkPad in June rather than May.

That's great. I still believe I'm entitled to $250 but justice has been mostly served. Thank you, Lenovo. I still like the computer a lot. The IBM/Lenovo software and security package is excellent. Driver and other updates happen with a click of a button, and the built-in backup system is transparent and easy to use.]

Get heavy on the tricks and lighten the treats. That’s how the rebate game is played. As “The Great Rebate Scam” says, companies do their best to keep you from successfully completing a rebate form.

I’m used to playing computer Rebate Scavenger Hunt. Scurry around the house looking for the bar code on the packaging, the original sales receipt, and proof that you owned an earlier version of the product.

Then, at midnight under a full moon, prick your index finger. Let three drops of blood fall on the rebate request. Make a perfectly legible red thumbprint on the rebate form while hopping on one foot and chanting, “I really want this rebate, I really do.”

Mail everything off. Your check might come in three months. If the clarity of the thumbprint meets with a peon’s approval.

I exaggerate. Barely. Consider my experience today with Lenovo, the current purveyors of “IBM” ThinkPad computers. I ordered a ThinkPad last month. It wasn’t difficult to convince myself that I needed a new laptop. Hey, my Emachines was two years old, close to 100 in computer years.

And it was orphaned. Emachines doesn’t sell laptops anymore. I wanted to jump into the embrace of a solid, reliable, businesslike computer company. Someone who would stand beside me when I needed help with balky hardware or software. Being a blogger, I require constant computer uptime. My loyal regular readers, the whole handful of them, deserve no less.

So in May when I lusted after a ThinkPad, “The Ultimate Business Machine,” on Lenovo’s web site, an 11% off sale and $250 mail-in rebate were all I needed to seal the deal on a Z60m.

At least, I thought I was getting a $250 rebate. Every Z60m model featured had a mention of the rebate, from the cheapest to the most expensive. I customized the higher end model, opting for a slightly smaller hard drive and more memory. I also bought an external USB drive for backup and an extended in-home repair warranty.

The computer is sweet. But Lenovo’s rebate game, which borders on a scam, left a sour taste. “Where is the mail-in rebate form?” I asked a customer service rep this afternoon. “It didn’t come with the computer.” “You need to download it from the Lenovo web site,” I was told.

OK. No problem. Except, my Z60m model wasn’t listed on the form as qualifying for a rebate. There are eight models, and only four of them qualified. I bought a 2529R3U. A 2529RCU gets a rebate. A 2529E3U gets a rebate. But not a 2529R3U. I was one goddamn number or letter off.

It’s like Toyota advertising a $1,000 rebate on Camry’s. However, if you order leather seats and a sunroof, you’re out of luck. Didn’t you know that a car with these features doesn’t qualify for the rebate? Well, you would if you had read the rebate form before you bought the car.

Most of us don’t. We assume that a company is playing fair—within the bounds of the Rebate Game, at least. I’d taken for granted that my model was included in the rebate offer since it differed only slightly from the models prominently featured in the “$250 mail-in rebate” promotion on the Lenovo web site.

I called Lenovo customer support again. I told my tale. I expected a sympathetic response for several reasons, including…

ThinkPad laptops come in five series: Z, R, T, X tablet, and X basic. I had bought one of the Z series. A Z60m. At this level of computer detail, I figured I was rebate safe. Lenovo is to Toyota as laptops are to cars, as Think Pads are to sedans, as the Z series is to Camry’s, as the Z60m is to a hybrid Camry.

I told the Lenovo representative that it never occurred to me that of two almost identical (and costly) Z60m’s, one would get a rebate and one wouldn’t. Again, this would be like offering a rebate only for a hybrid Camry with a cloth interior. It would be misleading to prominently advertise rebates on hybrid Camry’s and not tell buyers who wanted certain specific features on their car that they wouldn’t qualify for money back.

The response: silence. Not agreement. Not disagreement. Just silence. When I said, “Well…” I heard, “Your computer isn’t on the list of models that qualify for the rebate.” “Yes,” I replied, “I know that. What I’m asking you is whether you can do anything about this, given how misleading your advertising was.”

More silence. I was face to face with the robotization of modern corporations. I’m sure that the person I was talking to had no authority to do anything but respond on the basis of a script. I was asking questions that drifted beyond the “if…then” training she’d received.

I wanted a human response. I knew that I wasn’t going to get it. I hung up. And tried the rebate center. With the same result. Silence. Now I likely was talking with someone from a hired gun firm, not Lenovo itself, so my chances of getting a non-scripted reply were even less.

If someone from the Lenovo direct sales division ever reads this, here’s a message from a first time ThinkPad buyer:

I’m sure that you put a lot of thought into your May anniversary sale promotion. You had meetings where you brainstormed about sales and profit projections given various mail-in rebate scenarios.

Eventually you decided that if you made it look like a buyer of any Z60m would get a rebate, but only include half of the models on the rebate form, you’d generate more sales while having to pay out fewer rebates.

Brilliant. You lured me in. Congratulations. You sold a $2,000 Think Pad without having to pay a $250 rebate. I didn’t attend to the fine print. You win the game.

But here’s the thing. When you treat customers in this sort of mechanical fashion, calculating what misleading marketing inputs will generate the maximum profit outputs, you’re forgetting that the person who trusted you with his VISA number isn’t a machine.

He will remember how you manipulated the Rebate Game. He will tell his friends how much he likes his new computer, and how little he likes the Lenovo sales approach. And he will write a lengthy blog post about it.

That sort of advertising you can’t buy. You have to earn it. And you have.

(Final irritating irony: Lenovo now has a $200 rebate offer on every Z series “2529” model bought in June. I bought in May. So if I’d waited for a few weeks, I would have gotten the $200 for sure. I told the Lenovo rep that I could return my computer within 30 days, buy a new one, and save $200. So why couldn’t she just give me the $200 rebate now? Predictable response: silence.)

I agree that they are offenders, but not the top. I have my own additional idiosyncratic gripes, based on many years of twice or thrice weekly visits to the aerobic and weight machine rooms of Salem’s Courthouse Athletic Club, River Road branch.

Darters, the bane of circuit training harmony. I tread on delicate ground here, because my wife herself is a darter—a weight machine user who ignores the careful scientific positioning of the equipment (legs first, then upper body, finishing with central core) and their clear numbering (1, 2, 3…etc.).

You’d think the numbers plastered on the machines would give darters a subtle clue to the order in which they should be used. Being both a Libra who seeks order and balance (in some things), and a 90% genetic German with the obsessiveness that this implies, I always take care to start with 1, the leg press, and end with 16, the trunk rotation.

Darters are always messing with my mellow. They jump around, using the machines in any order they like, not understanding that if God had wanted this to happen, numbers never would have been invented. As I rise from the seat of machine #X, carefully wiping off my sweat before moving to machine #X+1, a darter often jumps in front of me—a horrendous breach of circuit training etiquette.

I think, “Rot in hell, darter!” as I meekly mutter, “No problem, I’ll come back to this machine.”

Fox News channel changers. My inward malevolence and outward lack of assertiveness also are on display in the aerobic room, which features six flat-screen televisions tuned to various channels. Usually one of those channels is the unfair and unbalanced Fox News.

I often choose to watch it because I’m a fair and balanced progressive who likes to learn about divergent political views. However, I prefer CNN. The posted channel-changing procedure is to look around the room before altering what a television is showing, asking via a gesture and quizzical look if anyone is watching that channel.

I’ve noticed that right-wing Fox News zealots don’t adhere to that rule, probably because they, like Bush, believe that they’re above the law. Even when one television already is tuned to Fox, if they’re on a treadmill, stationary bicycle, or stair trainer where they’d have to turn their head slightly to watch their beloved wacko news channel, they will brashly walk up to the CNN set and change it to Fox.

As above, I think, “Rot in hell, conservative channel changer!” as I meekly shift my attention to the newly American-flag emblazoned screen.

Locker room bench clothes displayers. Literalist athletic club member that I am, I’ve always assumed that the lockers are where you’re supposed to keep your clothes, and the benches are where you’re supposed to sit while you’re putting on or taking off your clothes. Other guys obviously have a different understanding.

They strew their workout gear—shoes and sweaty t-shirt, shorts, socks, jock strap—along the bench while they’re taking a shower, as if they feel that this display of removable male plumage is something their fellow members would love to gaze upon as those neatniks put their own clothes into or out of a locker.

Reality check for clothes displayers: if I were able to bring a ten-foot pole into the locker room with me, I still wouldn’t use it to push your jock strap out of the place where I want to sit. Instead, I take my shoes off as far from your crap as possible, even if I have to walk a far piece to my own locker.

And yes, I’m thinking “Rot in hell!”

Buff babe weight trainers. Don’t get me wrong, you lovely young things with the toned muscles, tight lycra crop tops, painted nails, and gold jewelry. You make my circuit training workout a lot more visually enjoyable. It’s a joy to follow your lead around the machines, rather than some other aging coot. But I have a request:

Please reset the weights on the machines to the lowest setting after you’re done with them. It’s really demoralizing for me when I, a 190 pound man, have to reduce the weight on a machine that you, a 120 pound woman, have just finished using. I try to do this as surreptitiously as possible, blocking a view of the weights with my body as I grab the pin and insert it into a setting twenty pounds lower than what you were lifting.

Next time, consider the ego of the 57 year-old gray-haired guy following you in the circuit training room. Ideally, leave the weight pin dangling so I have no idea how much stronger you are than me. That way my fantasies will remain more or less intact, which, after a certain age, is about all that you have left.

Macho machine hoggers. My last gripe echoes the #1 complaint in the newspaper article: people who settle into a weight machine as if they’re planning to spend the rest of their life there. My weenie workout consists of one set of twelve repetitions on each machine. Yet I’m cool with someone who wants to do two sets on the machine that’s next in line for me.

But come on: do you have to spend all day with your amazingly intricate routine, multiple sets of varying repetitions, changing weights up and down, staring off into space while you rest for what seems like an eternity between what seems like an infinite number of sets on the one and only machine that I haven’t used yet?

The “you” I am referring to almost always is a macho guy from the free weight area who has deigned to temporarily mingle with the poseurs in the circuit training room. He stands out by dint of his black gloves, leather training belt, muscle shirt, and, most obviously, highly visible muscles—each of which characteristics distinguishes him from me and most of the other circuit training peons.

Some free weighters are gracious and polite. But I’ve noticed that others are even less considerate than darters of other members waiting to use a machine. Perhaps all of their attention is being used up by their focus on how a particular muscle group is coming along. I’m used to seeing women preen before a mirror, but I still am surprised at the sight of free weight guys doing this.

And those are my gripes. Looking through the other end of the telescope, I myself probably would appear on a gripe list of some of my fellow athletic club members. Like…

January 05, 2006

It’s been quite a day for me on the fighting terrorism front. Two major accomplishments to report. (1) I discovered Al Qaeda’s headquarters in the United States. It’s in Indianapolis, Indiana. Got their email address too but haven’t had time to follow up on it.

I’ve been too busy analyzing what certainly appears to be an Al Qaeda email message that somehow found its way into my Outlook inbox. Don’t know how it got there. Several pieces of evidence suggest that Al Qaeda isn’t using super-duper secret 2006 lock-the-door-and-toss-away-the-key email communication techniques.

So the message I intercepted likely is authentic. I’ll share it with the blogosphere before I forward it to the CIA. Some details, of course, I’m keeping to myself. Got to keep some leverage for my book deal. Working title: “How I single-handedly unraveled Al Qaeda in America.” (Contract offers from major publishers are now being accepted).

-------------------------------------------------
Dear Mohammed,

Peace be upon you. Hope this finds you well. How is Fallujah these days? Are there any new Internet cafes?

Last time we communicated you spoke of the rumor that Starbucks was going to open an outlet. If they did, make sure your martyrs choose other targets: I’m sipping a SB vanilla latte right now while using their wi-fi, and it’s to die for, which is why our brave brothers and sisters shouldn’t—near the expresso machine, at least.

Anyway, I must tell you that this is the last message you will get from me. I’m about to toss my computer down a well (where, may Allah forgive my obscenity, this piece-of-crap Windows machine should have gone a long time ago) for things are getting too hot for me here.

I can’t believe it, my friend! Bush and his godless National Security Agency have been spying on American citizens like me without a warrant. Remember when I told you not to worry about the messages you were sending me from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, because the law required a time-consuming warrant to spy on people in this infidel country?

Big mistake. I didn’t read the part in the FISA Act about after-the-fact warrants. Worse, I trusted Bush to obey the Constitution and play by the rules. I have failed you, Mohammed! I never thought that the U.S. government would intercept the emails where we openly discussed all those details about impending Al Qaeda attacks.

Curses be upon Bush and his intelligent agencies! And praises upon the New York Times, without whom I never would have thought about communicating with you through channels more secure than my Yahoo email account. Truly the Times has done Al Qaeda in America a great service. Now we know that the NSA has been tracking emails and phone calls between the brothers overseas and those of us in this country.

Who would have thought that this would happen after our glorious victory on 9/11?

I am now retracing my Internet steps, trying to figure out where I might have left clues as to the presence of my terrorist cell. I wish I hadn’t bought all those books on Amazon about how to build a dirty bomb. And to have them shipped to my real address, fool that I am!

I also am wondering if that “Seventy hot virgins want to meet you now, not when you die” web site you sent me the URL for was actually a CIA ruse. After I clicked on the link that said “Find out what is awaiting you in paradise, you big studly martyr” my computer started acting different.

I kept getting popups that asked me to enter my name, address, and phone number if I wanted to meet sexy babes in my area who liked extreme Islamic fundamentalist radicals, which, naturally, I did. Funny thing was, I never got more info about the women.

Mohammed, I am beginning to think that I may have compromised both my cell and our entire movement in America. I should have suspected that intelligence agencies were monitoring our communications. Naïve, naïve, naïve! That’s me.

Well, I’m about to trash my computer. From now on I’ll write letters to you instead of using email. Is the post office in Fallujah still standing? And have you gone to U.S. style zip codes yet? Please advise.

I assume the NSA and CIA don’t open mail from American citizens that is going to Al Qaeda hotspots in Iraq. That would be illegal, wouldn’t it? I don’t think we have any need to worry about this new way of communicating. I’ll go buy some stamps and stationery as soon as I finish my latte.

The Islamic Revolution is near, my friend. With Allah’s help we will outsmart the infidels.
-------------------------------------------------

[Note to the NSA and/or other intelligence agencies: this weblog posting is a satire protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution (remember that?), not an actual Al Qaeda communication. If I get any of those for real, I’ll be sure to forward them to you. After I’ve written my book, that is.]

Next-day update: Thanks to the Daily Kos I just came across a terrific summary by The Left Coaster of the myths vs. realities in the Bush administration's domestic spying scandal. Check it out.

My point in this post is that it's ridiculous to believe that Al Qaeda operatives are so clueless as to be plotting over open email and telephone channels. The electronic surveillance capabilities of American intelligence agencies have been an open secret for a long time. As The Left Coaster points out, Bush's illegal spying program doesn't make us safer. Quite the opposite.

Plus, Al Qaeda is out to subvert America's freedoms and way of life. By trashing the Constitution, the Bush administration is aiding and abetting in this effort.

January 03, 2006

As of today the recently-discovered serious “zero-day vulnerability” in Windows is still unpatched. I just checked Windows Update and was told “no high priority updates for your computer are available.”

What gives, Microsoft? Are all of your programmers still on Christmas break? On December 28 the f-secure weblog said “We expect Microsoft to issue a patch on this as soon as they can.”

A day later Microsoft issues a work-around until the patch is released (see the Dec. 29 posting on the link above). That’s great for people willing and able to mess around with the Windows registry, but for the unwashed computer-using masses like me…

Microsoft is fiddling while Windows burns.

Fortunately, I’m a Firefox user. I just converted my wife’s computer to Firefox also. The Windows vulnerability occurs when a .wmf graphics file is clicked on. Then different things happen in Internet Explorer and Firefox:

Users of Microsoft Internet Explorer are automatically infected when they visit a Web page hosting an infected image. Firefox will first ask the user before opening the file. If the user approves, he will still be infected.

So switch to Firefox if you haven’t already. Comply with the work-around if you’re stubbornly still using Internet Explorer. And just to be safe, it’s probably wise to not visit any unfamiliar web sites until Microsoft fixes this Windows vulnerability.

Oh, there’s another option: buy a Macintosh (I mention this so my sister won’t have to leave a comment saying the same thing).

December 31, 2005

With less than 12 hours remaining in 2005, it’s time for me to clean out this year's link closet where I store funny and bizarre sites that strike me as possessing some sort of je ne sais quoi special élan.

Thanks in general to my fellow ORblogs posters who led me to most of these links, yet now must remain specifically unthanked as I’ve lost track of the cyberspace bread crumb trail that led me to these gems.

--This Galumpia Adult site is strangely fascinating, and not at all what you’d expect given its name. A notice on the home page offers a hint of what lies inside: “Warning: This site contains images.”

--I won’t reveal how I came across How to Accurately Measure Your Penis, except to say that this information wasn’t being sought by me at the time. Nonetheless, I chuckled my way through what is billed as “A Gay Man’s Guide to Real World Dimensions: Your dick size, a work of fact or fiction?” For both straights and gays, this has to be the definitive guide to the subject.

--Speaking of Fantasy vs. Reality, click on that link for a great expose of Internet poseurs such as Mr. Hilarity, Religious Zealot, The Tough Guy, Homophobe, Brainiac, Role Player, Lothario, The Dark Poet, and Cutie Pie. After reading it, I wondered into what category I fall, since I use my real name and persona in cyberspace.

I hope you have a more exciting evening than we’re about to experience, what with our traditional hosting of a vegetarian, alcohol-free potluck for people in my meditation group. When we start sharing tofu recipes, that’s when things really start getting wild.

October 31, 2005

Recently I’ve made a new friend, our local pharmacist. I had gone fifty-seven years without needing a long term prescription.

However, this year for my birthday I not only got my first prostate exam from a female doctor but also some Flomax samples (though peeing can be fun, I’d prefer to engage in this activity a bit less often).

In addition, the week after my physical exam I got a phone call about my blood test results. “Your cholesterol is 212,” I was told by the nurse. “That’s crazy,” I said. “It’s always been less than 190. I’ve been a strict vegetarian for thirty-five years. I don’t eat any meat at all. Yogurt is the only dairy product that I consume. I’m a poster child for good nutrition. Plus, my weight is normal and I get some exercise every day.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “Your total cholesterol is still 212 and your LDL cholesterol is 142. They’re both borderline high. You need to talk with the doctor.” Which I did last Monday. I walked out with another prescription: Lovastatin, 10 mg.

“Good god,” I thought, as I drove to Salem’s Oak Tree Pharmacy to pick up the prescriptions that my doctor had faxed in for Flomax and Lovastatin. “Mildly enlarged prostate. Mildly high cholesterol. Mild is nice, but I still feel like a middle-aged male cliché.”

I don’t like getting old. And neither do I like public announcements of my age-related health problems (cyberspace declarations like this one excepted). I wasn’t looking forward to standing at the pharmacist’s counter and having him describe my prostate and cholesterol medications both to me and everyone else within earshot.

My doctor had asked me where I wanted to have the prescriptions filled. I toyed with the idea of getting them from Drugstore.com or a similar online pharmacy. That way my Flomax and Lovastain would reach me in a nicely anonymous fashion and I might save some money to boot.

I decided to support my local pharmacy, though. And I’m happy that I did. I like Oak Tree Pharmacy. It’s small and personal. The owners’ German Shepherd used to stay with them in the store. The dog is gone now but the informal atmosphere remains. John, the pharmacist, spoke to me in appropriately hushed tones. He reassured me that 10 mg is a low dose of Lovastatin and is unlikely to cause any side effects.

Returning home with my bag of prescriptions, I noticed an issue of the University of California at Berkeley “Wellness Letter” sitting on the kitchen counter where we pile our mail. I flipped through it. I came across an article called “Why the pharmacist matters.” I read:

Few of us think of pharmacists as a professional resource. Indeed, many of us shop online and never see a pharmacist, or in a big chain store where the staff often changes, and the person who finds the prescribed drug in the rack and hands it over often is not the pharmacist at all.

If you seldom need a prescription, this may not matter. But if you or anyone in your family takes medication long term—for lowering blood pressure or cholesterol, or preventing bone loss, for example—it pays to know your pharmacist. Here’s why:

The “why” is that a pharmacist (1) understands the medications that you are taking and often is the best person to pinpoint the cause of side effects, (2) may be more readily available for answering questions than your doctor, and (3) can help you avoid interactions and allergic reactions and guide you to less-expensive generics.

Also, it just feels right to me to support a local independent pharmacist rather than buy online or at a giant corporate chain such as Wal-Mart. I already feel guilty buying as many books as I do from Amazon instead of one of Salem’s independent bookstores. Getting my prescriptions filled at Oak Tree Pharmacy helps me balance my bad book shopping karma.

I’d figured, though, that I was paying a substantial price for doing business with Oak Tree instead of Drugstore.com. I just found out that I was wrong. The online cost of my Flomax prescriptions is $57.99 at Drugstore.com (which they claim is an 18% discount). I paid $59.70 at Oak Tree Pharmacy.

And the Lovastatin was considerably cheaper at Oak Tree: $19.05 vs. $31.99 at Drugstore.com. Now, even though I haven’t met my Regence deductible, I still might be getting some sort of health insurance discount through Oak Tree. Regardless, the bottom line is that it is costing me less to buy the prescriptions locally through an independent pharmacy than if I ordered them online.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, a revealing documentary is about to be released on DVD: “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.” You can host your own screening or find out where to attend one.

June 19, 2005

Congratulations to Bill Long, a friend and fellow Salemite, for placing second—once again—in the 2005 National Senior Spelling Bee. As Bill notes in his “Speller’s Diary,” the national winner, David Riddle, also won the 2005 Oregon Spelling Bee.

Hey, what is a California attorney doing in an Oregon spelling bee? Isn’t there a state law against such a thing? If not, there should be. But Riddle does seem like a deserving champion. Anyone who can spell “mulligatawny” (a soup) correctly gets a bow from me.

Well, Bill can take heart in being the poster boy for the 2005 National Senior Spelling Bee. He might even be called a senior speller heartthrob. That furrowed brow and concentrated expression almost sends a chill up my own thoroughly heterosexual spine (Note: I said almost). And he got some nice coverage in a pre-bee national story.

Bill is single, so I expect he’ll be attracting some Senior Spelling groupies. If you want to know more about Bill, his bio and contact info are here.

I’m pleased to be one of Bill’s friends. He’s a member of a monthly “Salon” discussion group that Laurel organized and almost always comes up with creative, well-reasoned, highly intelligent observations. Except when I disagree with him, then, naturally, he’s a freaking idiot.

May 19, 2005

It looks like the Corporate Compliance Recorder scam described by the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau has made its way to Oregon. In the mail today I found this official-looking envelope addressed to the non-profit community association that I’m the secretary for.

I believe this is the time our annual corporation fee is due, so at first I thought the mailing was for real. But the $95 fee was steep, and I’d never heard of a requirement to disclose annual minutes.

Of course, there isn’t such a requirement. These scammers on Market Street are hoping that people don’t read the fine print of the other side of their letter, which begins: Corporation Compliance Recorder is a non-governmental service business that assists corporations to avoid possible penalties and fines with state and government agencies.

Aside from taking your $95, it’s hard to figure out what service they provide. Apparently you fill out the form describing the corporation’s annual meeting, then they send you back the information you provided with something like “These are your official minutes” stamped on it. Or whatever. It’s a useless service, regardless.

February 09, 2005

Here’s a photo of Serena, our dog, modeling the official Firefox cap that I bought along with Firefox/Thunderbird CDs and manual from the Mozilla store. Serena doesn’t look too happy with Firefox, probably because Laurel and I were screaming “stay, stay!!” at her while I tried to get the right camera angle to show off the logo. But I am.

I love the free (if you download it) Firefox web browser. The February 2005 issue of PC World gave it a “Best Bet” award in a battle of the browsers review article. It got 4.5 stars (out of 5) vs. Microsoft Internet Explorer’s 3.0 stars. I took my first big step away from the Evil Microsoft Empire after reading one news story too many about a newly discovered vulnerability in IE for which I should immediately download patches to protect my computer.

My Macintosh-using sister loves to forward me PC-bashing items like Mark Morford’s “Why Does Windows Still Suck?” essay. Good question. Morford’s other equally good question is “Why the hell do people put up with this?” Habit, I guess. Internet Explorer was working for me, so I put off the move to Firefox until my habitual inertia was overcome by my ever-increasing Microsoft irritation.

The move went smoothly. Firefox copies over all of your IE bookmarks, cookies, and what not. I haven’t had any problem logging in to any password protected site that I was accessing with IE. I’ve found a few web sites that don’t display cleanly in Firefox, so I still use IE once in a while. Another reason to keep IE handy is that the PC World article says Firefox won’t work at all with IE-only sites such as Microsoft’s Windows Update (what a surprise).

My biggest gripe with Firefox is that it doesn’t have a right-click “refresh picture (or page) with full quality” option. I use a web accelerator because of our slow dial-up connection. It degrades images to speed up the loading of web pages. It’s nice with IE to be able to click on a single photo that you want to view crisply rather than fuss with changing the accelerator settings to improve the image quality of an entire page, or turn off the accelerator entirely.

But this is a small price to pay for all the pluses of Firefox. I like the tabbed browsing feature that lets you open up multiple pages in the same browser. The “find” command in Firefox is much superior to IE’s. And you can download free extensions to Firefox that further enhance its abilities. I’ve added on Adblock, Google bar, and Autofill. Adblock is particularly enjoyable. I never get tired of right-clicking on an ad and making it go away permanently. Adblock also takes care of annoying Flash animations. One click and Poof!, they’re dead.

December 17, 2004

This is the season for over-shopping, over-eating, over-drinking, over-decorating, over-socializing, and over-warning about over-indulging. A picture emailed to us by a neighbor, Frank Haynes, wonderfully captures this over-the-top spirit. With equal abandon may we all throw ourselves into our own purrfect pleasures this holiday season. Postpone the guilt until January (2050).

December 06, 2004

Here’s a photo of Dave Jones (in the blue gi) and the rest of our motley Pacific Martial Arts dojo gang. Dave was awarded a well-deserved black belt by Sensei Warren Allen (in the middle) last Saturday. He’s expert at a variety of weapons and a highly skilled ground/jujitsu fighter. Plus, a great guy with a laid back personality and some cool tattoos.

My description of ourselves as “motley” is a compliment. When I got home and looked at the photo of (from left to right) Bob, Dennis, Warren, Dave, me, and Mike (kneeling), I realized each of us is attired quite differently. Black gis are the most common fashion statement, but even the three of us inclined to a Gothic look are disparate in our accessories.

After almost nine years of traditional Shotokan karate training where everyone had to wear a plain white gi (and only females wore a t-shirt under it, which helps explain my habitual t-shirtless look), I much appreciate Warren’s hang-loose Taoist attitude toward the dojo dress code. Discipline is needed in the martial arts, but dressing exactly alike doesn’t teach anything except rigidity.

It’s interesting that my changeover from the linear, dogmatic, structured Shotokan training to the Pacific Martial Arts circular, eclectic, flowing style has pretty much paralleled a similar change in how I approach meditation and spirituality. I’ve become much less rigid in my philosophical/metaphysical beliefs during the years I’ve been trying to achieve a similar openness in my martial arts training.

My new Church of the Churchless site reflects this creedless creed mentality. I wish that I could recall everything Warren said as he was awarding Dave his black belt, as it echoed the message I’ve been preaching at the Church of the Churchless. Except, Warren said his piece more briefly and with more punch than I usually do.

Sensei Allen spoke of how the goal is to be unpredictable in the practice of “formless form,” which was Bruce Lee’s basic approach to the martial arts. Do what works. Don’t get stuck in patterns. Respond fluidly to the situation. Let intuition guide your moves, not pre-programmed conscious thought.

I’ll probably never use my martial arts training in “real life.” Laurel and I don’t frequent bars, and most altercations seem to happen where people are drinking. But then again, I will use it. For real life is what I live every day, as does everyone. Being as philosophical as I am, my deepest motivation in practicing martial arts is to learn how to apply my experience in the dojo to my everyday existence.

Last night Laurel was flipping through a catalog, saw a t-shirt advertised, and said “Now, that message fits me: I’ve got a black belt in shopping.” Absolutely true.

We’re all black belts in something. The trick is to make that something the right thing.

Then I remembered: it was me. This brought the object of my rage wonderfully close to hand, but as soon as I started to strangle myself I felt a strong urge to forgive. Which I have. Anyway, it is Microsoft whose neck should be wrung, notwithstanding the difficulty of identifying where to apply such pressure on a corporate body.

I spent most of the afternoon taking the laptop to the nearest Best Buy store, having it inspected by a friendly member of the Geek Squad, being told that the wisest course of action was to reinstall the hard disk backup that I had fortuitously made, and initiating the reinstall—which ended up taking over twelve hours to complete over a slow PC card connection.

All because the SP2 software screwed something up on a computer that hitherto had been working flawlessly. Yes, I know. I should have gotten a Mac. If you’re thinking of leaving a comment to that effect, don’t bother. I can’t disagree with you, but I’m locked into this sadomasochistic relationship with Microsoft and can’t leave now.

We Windows users are a lot like Cinderella. We toil away cleaning up the crap that the lord and lady of the manor imperiously leave lying around. The rich royals lavishly party on without deigning to improve the living conditions of those who make their palace possible.

I read recently that Microsoft has used some thirty billion dollars of its cash horde to pay a hefty dividend to its stockholders. Here’s a cry from the scullery maid: “Hey! How about using some of those billions to fix your software? Instead of having the blue screen of death tell me that some indecipherable something has screwed up, whereupon following each of your useless pieces of advice to attempt a fix of the problem leads me directly back to the blue screen of death, wouldn’t it be cool if your software that caused the problem could also fix the problem?”

Here’s my dream Windows error message: “Dear esteemed user of our operating system, we apologize profusely for any inconvenience we have caused you in the course of your installing Service Pack 2. An unanticipated problem has arisen which our software is correcting at this very moment. Soon your computer will be working fine again. You need do nothing more; rest assured that all will be well in ____ minutes. Please go to your nearest Starbucks store, order a Grande Latte, and tell the staff to charge it to this Microsoft account: ______.”

Until this fantasy becomes reality I will continue to rely on the hard disk backup system that just saved my proverbial ass. When Laurel plaintively asked, “Have all my files disappeared?” I wasn’t sure. But I confidently said, “No. The CMS backup system should restore everything just as it was.” Which it did, booting from a Rescue Disk CD and apparently using a Linux program to get Windows back up and running. I can testify that the CMS Bounce Back software worked as advertised, copying over the entire non-functional hard drive with the backed-up files.

Every Windows user should have a complete hard disk backup. You never know when the Dark Side of Microsoft will show its ugly face. Mac users, you probably should do the same, but there’s no doubt that you are treated better by the lord and master of your operating system.

November 24, 2004

Here are some cartoons for carnivores to contemplate before devouring the turkey (or whatever other hapless animal is on your plate) tomorrow. Hey, there's still time to run out and get a tofu turkey! I recommend the Now and Zen Unturkey. Its crispy unskin and delightful stuffing make it our traditional Thanksgiving main dish.

These cartoons were included in my book about why it makes good karmic sense to be a vegetarian. "Life is Fair" was published non-commercially in India in 1999. Over twenty-five thousand copies were sold around the world. I love the idea that a guy from the United States wrote a book about karma and vegetarianism that lots of Indians bought. Culture and information flow in all earthly directions now, East-West, North-South, wherever.

But pretty much animals are still left out of the ever-widening circle of understanding that binds people together. They can't talk in human language, so most people don't consider them worthy of human compassion. Yet as I say in my book, if a cow could use its hoof to scratch a message in the dirt of its feedpen--"Help me! I don't want to die!"--would beef-eating be so palatable?

Preaching about vegetarianism is so, well, preachy. I'll let the cartoons do most of the talking (click on the image to make it larger).

Calvin is such a deep thinker. Maybe God is a chicken. I just hope God isn't made of tofu, and resents those who digest his being.

Another perspective on chickens getting the last laugh.

This reminds me of all the little girls we (briefly) converted to vegetarianism when my daughter was young. Her friends would eat dinner with us and wonder why there wasn't any meat. When we said, "We don't like to kill animals," they'd scream, "Meat comes from animals!!??" Next thing we'd know a parent would be calling: "What did you say to my child? She won't eat meat now."

A fresh perspective on the fish market. Today's newspaper reported on PETA's "fish are our friends" campaign. Check it out before you write off our finny companions as stupid creatures unworthy of empathy.

Kind of makes you want to hug a salmon, doesn't it? (caption is a bit cut off: "I didn't know they had feelings")

November 07, 2004

I ran into the daughter of a friend yesterday at the 10th anniversary celebration LifeSource Natural Foods was putting on. Her baby was happily mouthing one of the free pizza samples. The sight brought back memories of how much work our washing machine put in when my own daughter was that age.

Pretty quickly—instantly, in fact—the conversation turned to what also, if I were the baby’s mother, would be the first words out of my mouth when I met an acquaintance with my baby in tow. Heck, they’d be the first words when I met a stranger too.

“She won the cutest baby in Salem award!” “Wow, congratulations,” I replied. I didn’t delve into the details of who gave out the award and all that, but I didn’t question that Pizza Baby (sorry, can’t remember her name) deserved the accolade. When you can look cute with tomato sauce all over your face, you really are cute.

A clown with a very large dog caught my eye next. I told the dog that he was cute too. The clown said that his companion was a pussy cat, metaphorically speaking, and I did successfully pat him after more than a little trepidation. But I figured that lavish compliments, even if not totally sincere, were the best way to stay on this canine’s good side.

It’s a commentary on Salem that one of the big progressive events of the year is LifeSource’s annual celebration in the store’s parking lot. I won’t call it a sad commentary, but that’s probably what it is. Nonetheless, Laurel and I are grateful for the existence of Salem’s one and only natural food store.

We can’t understand why the second largest city in Oregon doesn’t have a larger Wild Oats, or some such, store. But then Salem doesn’t have a Trader Joes either. Marketing note to these companies if you Google this post: Come to Salem! Forget the demographic statistics about all the unhealthy, overweight, fast-food eating people in this area. You’ll do good business here. Laurel and I will welcome you with open wallets, and so will a lot of other folks starved for more natural food options.

October 14, 2004

Thank you, o gloriously generous Internet! For today I received two great gifts from you: (1) a free download of the beta Google Desktop Search, which is so wonderful I would say I am speechless, if it weren’t for this posting; and (2) a link from a fellow Oregon blogger that led me to The Smoking Gun story, “O’Reilly Hit with Sex Harass Suit,” which contains marvelously explicit descriptions of the sexual fantasies Bill O’Reilly purportedly shared with an unwilling staffer.

The Google gift seems to work precisely as promised. After this teeny-tiny (for what it does) 400kb download installed itself on my computer, it spent an hour or so cataloging emails, cached Internet pages, and other files on my hard drive. I then was able to get Google search results for my own computer in exactly the same fashion as Google does for the entire Internet.

This is just so cool, I can’t praise Google Desktop Search enough. It comes up with the search results almost instantaneously, no matter what combination of terms I tried to stump it with. The results are categorized by “emails,” “files,” and “web history” (plus “chats,” if you are an online chatter, which I’m not). It is much faster and more flexible than Outlook’s email search feature; ditto compared to the Windows file searching process.

In my opinion Google Desktop Search is a must for every Windows XP and Windows 2000 user (the only operating systems it works with, so far; plus, you have to be using Outlook/Outlook Express and Internet Explorer 5+). Try it out and be amazed.

You’ll also be amazed to read the lengthy complaint filed against Bill O’Reilly that is accessible from the link above. The Smoking Gun kindly has pointers to the more provocative pages of the complaint, saving those of us who just want to read the “good stuff” from wading through boring legalese.

If it was anybody but O’Reilly who was the subject of this complaint, I’d feel somewhat guilty about being privy to a man’s sexual fantasies (and also behavior, given what Andrea Mackris claims in the brief). However, O’Reilly treats guests on his radio and TV programs with such contempt, and is so irritatingly arrogant and self-righteous, I found myself gleefully reading page after page of Ms. Mackris’ allegations.

Maybe the allegations will turn out to be unfounded. Maybe Mackris and her lawyer really were trying to unfairly shake down O’Reilly and Fox for $60 million, as another story on The Smoking Gun web site reports (Fox first filed a lawsuit against Mackris, which led to Mackris’ complaint against O’Reilly). Whatever the truth of this matter really is, I’ll bet that O’Reilly turns out to be less pure than the No-Spin Angel he presents himself as.

October 13, 2004

Oh, Microsoft, why is our relationship so strained? After I praise your XP SP2 update, yesterday you let me down with a muffed security fix. Optimistically, I had turned on the “automatic updates” feature, and noted that some large files were being downloaded via our slow dial-up connection.

When I tried to shut down my computer, I was met with an “updates will be installed upon shutdown” notice that I had never seen before. Still optimistic, I went ahead and clicked “shut down,” after which I gazed upon an endlessly recurring loop of installation messages, as described by my fellow Windows sufferer IanG who posted this plaintive query in a Microsoft Windows update discussion group:

I downloaded SP2 last week, upon shutting down my computer last night the shutdown screen started displaying "Installing update 1 of 3" and alternating this text with "Do not turn off or unplug your computer" - I haven't and it's still doing this 15 hours later! Any ideas?

This posting came from page 2 of 368 pages of queries concerning XP2 and security update problems. Earth to Microsoft: If you can’t reliably write software for installing your updates, what makes you think users are going to be confident installing the updates themselves?

In today’s Bend Bulletin, in an AP story called “Microsoft releases security updates,” I read: Stephen Toulouse, a security program manager at Microsoft, said people who had Service Pack 2 and are also using Office XP didn’t correctly receive the update because of a problem with the installer.

Yes, Stephen, I know. I have SP2 and Office XP. Doesn’t Microsoft? Wouldn’t you have checked the security update installation on a computer with SP2 and Office XP before you released it? Good god…

Notwithstanding my personal success with installing SP2, you might want to read this PC World article before taking the plunge yourself. It says that 9% of those who installed XP2 had moderate problems, and 4% encountered difficulties that made their computer difficult or impossible to use.

Not good enough, Microsoft. Keep trying. I’ve turned off “automatic updates,” which got my own computer back to working after I exited the endless loop of installation messages. From now on I’ll decide when to install a security update, not you, Microsoft.

September 05, 2004

Like everyone else (except maybe some heartless Louisiana State fans), I’ve got a lot of empathy for the OSU placekicker, Alexis Serna, whose three missed extra points kept Oregon State from a stupendous college football upset yesterday over third ranked LSU. Oh, man, 22-21 in overtime. It was a great game that merits use of the overused cliche, “Neither team deserved to lose.”

Alexis, I’ve been there with you, along with an awful lot of other guys and gals. When you threw down your helmet after the final missed kick and screamed in frustration, I screamed inside my head along with you. Actually, I’m still screaming. For your evident agony, as marvelously pictured on the front page of the Sunday “Oregonian” sports section, has brought back memories of my personal Most Embarassing Moment in Sports (or MEMS).

Of course, my own MEMS didn’t occur on a national ESPN telecast in front of some 92,000 rabid fans. But with these sorts of experiences, it is the inner mortification that matters, not how many people observe your crushing downfall. My 1966 pain may not match your 2004 pain, Alexis. It isn’t possible to quantify or compare between two or more MEMS’. Yet I can say this: I survived, and so will you.

Here I am, my Woodlake Union High School tennis team photo having been taken a few weeks after my season-ending collapse on a Lindsay High School court. We Woodlake tennis Tigers had shared the league championship with Lindsay my sophomore year. Next year we tanked, and another championship was dearly on my mind my senior year, as I had expected to enjoy a “three-peat.”

It all came down to our final match with Lindsay. Notwithstanding the “second singles” moniker on the yearbook photo, I had jostled back and forth with a teammate, Brian Whitten, for the first singles spot. My possibly biased recollection is that I had beaten the other Brian just before the Lindsay match. But Coach Boccone, in his sly wisdom, had me playing second singles, figuring that I’d be much stronger than the supposedly weak second Lindsay guy.

We were playing at Lindsay. My match was the last to finish. If I won, we’d tie for the league championship. If I lost, Lindsay would win the championship outright. I cruised through the first set, no problem, something like 6-1. Then I somehow lost the second set in a squeaker, 7-5 maybe. All the other players gathered around the court to watch. Even the Lindsay baseball team came over after their practice was over, having heard that the championship was on the line.

Alexis, a missed extra point takes just a few seconds. Losing the third set of a crucial tennis match can feel like it takes forever. Time slows down in some sort of horrible Einsteinian joke. I screwed up shots that normally I could make in my sleep. The worse I played, the better the other guy played. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I couldn’t stop what was happening to me. The more I tried to improve my game, the more it deteriorated.

How often do you miss a chip shot extra point in practice, Alexis? You understand—it isn’t a physical thing, it’s a mental thing. You had 180,000 eyes on you. I had less than a hundred. No matter. It was my eye that was messing me up, the eye I was turning on myself that couldn’t believe what a totally f___ked-up mess I was making of my game.

I hardly remember how the match ended. But I distinctly remember getting on the team bus last, after everyone else was on. My teammates of both sexes were deathly silent (we had Boys and Girls teams). I stalked down the bus corridor. I threw my racquet with perfect accuracy straight down the middle of the bus until it clattered off the rear window and fell to the bench seat. Best shot I had all day.

And here I am, thirty-eight years later, almost able to smile at how ridiculously seriously I took my loss that day. Almost. It still hurts, but only mildly now. Alexis, I bet you’re going to win some games for Oregon State over your career. Yet maybe I’ll lose that bet. Whatever. You might be a complete college football failure, Alexis, and still be a huge winner at life. Obviously that’s what really counts. Here’s some sage advice from Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic Roman Emperor:

“Be like the headland against which the waves break and break: it stands firm, until presently the watery tumult around it subsides once more to rest. ‘How unlucky I am, that this should have happened to me!’ By no means; say rather, ‘How lucky I am, that it has left me with no bitterness; unshaken by the present, and undismayed by the future.’ The thing could have happened to anyone, but not everyone would have emerged unembittered….So here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not, ‘This is a misfortune,’ but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’”

May 16, 2004

Bicycling around Camp Sherman today, it hit me: my inner child wants to return to the days when people bought gas at the town store from pumps with a shell/Shell on top, and when going to the post office meant you’d catch up on the town gossip and get a chance to sit a spell on the bench outside.

This was the sort of town I grew up in, Three Rivers, California. Just a few hundred people back in the mid-1950s to mid-1960s. A tourist/ranching town with, yes, three forks of the Kaweah River. My mother and I lived within earshot of the Middle Fork, so I listened to the roar of the rapids every summer night when I went to sleep with the window open—just like Laurel and I do now when we come to Camp Sherman, with the Metolius River rustling along just a few hundred feet away.

Anyone who grows up in a small town never leaves that place. Well, I’m sure the same is true for those who grow up in big cities. But there is something about a small town like Camp Sherman or Three Rivers that grabs you in a way that New York or Chicago can’t. Intimacy. Familiarity. Human scale. Naturalness.

My grandmother always enjoyed talking art with the garbageman when she visited Three Rivers. He was an artist, as she was, and collected the town garbage to make extra money. He’d pull up in his truck, my grandmother would go out on the porch, and they’d chat about this and that. No rush. No supervisor waiting to dock his pay if he was late. Small town time. Different from big city time.

For the locals, everybody knows your name when you go into the Camp Sherman store. We’re just quasi-local, but we feel at home there too. One day, I hope, we’ll just have to say “the usual” when we stop in for our end-of-biking lattes. The post office serves as the Camp Sherman library. People, us included, bring in books and magazines and leave them on shelves and a table in the lobby. No check-out system. Just trust. Take what you want. Bring it back when you want.

My mother was the postmistress for one of the smallest post offices in the United States, the walk-in closet sized Kaweah post office up the North Fork. The Camp Sherman post office is giant by comparison. When I was ten I used to ride my bike to see her at work. Today, at fifty-five, I rode my bike to another little country post office. My mother wasn’t there. Also, she was.

March 04, 2004

Oh, Google, why hath thou forsaken me? I worship daily at your throne, www.google.com, and praise you far and wide. Soon after I set up this new home for HinesSight I entered your good graces, and you indexed me (Google be praised) at http://hinessight.blogs.com. Now I have fallen from your favor, and my heart is sorely troubled. What must I do to please you, oh Great Google?

Well, I think I’ve already answered my own question through a visit to the Google web site. Apparently Google doesn’t like “mirror” sites in which several URLs point to the same content. Since I was reposting my previous postings here before I deleted them from the old weblog, I suspect that Google noticed the similarity between the old and the new weblog, and decided HinesSight new didn’t have to be indexed.

The Great Google’s advice on how to get indexed bears a disturbingly close resemblance to getting into an exclusive nightclub: it doesn’t do any good to beg, plead, or cajole—the doorman decides who gets in, and he can’t be influenced; it’s who you know that counts—the more important friends (links) you have, the more likely it is that Google will notice you.

So if you have a website or a weblog, you can help assure that HinesSight is redeemed by putting a link to this page on your own site. Google loves interconnections, mutual cyberspace backscratchings, I’ll-show-yours-if-you’ll-show-mine. Email me if you add my link, and I’ll return the favor through a new “Links I Like” section. Together we will kneel at the altar of the Great Google and shamelessly seek her blessings.

January 20, 2004

It’s always a pleasure to get a fresh email message from Mil’s Mailing List (written by Mil Millington, the creator of Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, a wildly creative and funny website that I’ve recommended before). Here’s Mil’s take on Angry Bed Positions. I think he has made a real contribution toward advancing mankind’s understanding of this little-studied, but hugely important, sphere of non-verbal human interaction.

October 29, 2003

We interrupt this weblog for some commercial messages. Well, quasi-commercial, since HinesSight is not supported by any dependable source of income, in the traditional writer’s spirit. I’ve just built up a small stack of items that are calling out to be publicized, and want to shut up those annoying little voices from the pieces of paper on the rug beside my desk. Plus, I want to stop rolling over them every time I push my chair away to get another snack, or take a nap, after laboring at my literary projects for the usual half hour or so at a stretch. (The financial return of independent writing is shitty, but you can’t beat the working conditions.)

Vintage Silverton home for sale.I start with this item, because this home is listed for $595,000, and it certainly seems like I should get, oh, 2% or such if I find a buyer for Jim and Ruth Lizotte. These friends of ours had the utterly wonderful idea of moving to Ashland, Oregon, the coolest city to live in, in the coolest state to live in. This is why they need to sell their 49 acre farm outside of Silverton, and the 1899 (nicely remodeled/updated) home that sits on the property. When you make an offer, be sure to tell them that Brian brokered the deal, and demand that I get the commission before any papers are signed. Prospective buyers can email or call me to discuss kickback details. I promise we won’t let any legal niceties get in the way of both of us receiving some healthy $$$ out of this deal. If God isn’t going to grace me with a
-Cooper, I’m going to have to get one by means fair or foul.

“Diagnosis Unknown” e-book for sale.Randy Smith wrote “Diagnosis Unknown” and got it published by Hampton Roads in 1997. The book is now out of print (join my club, Randy), and the rights have reverted to the author. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the print version, and I’m not just saying that because Laurel and I like to stay with Randy and Linda when we go to Ashland, and because they have a neat guest cottage within walking distance of downtown and the Shakespeare Center (not that we ever go to plays, but we go to clothing stores, and bookstores).

This is a story of how Randy and Linda struggled to figure out what was causing Linda’s mysterious medical problems, and how they journeyed through a fascinating labyrinth of traditional and alternative health practitioners. “Diagnosis Unknown” comes to some conclusions that will surprise you, especially if you’re as skeptical about the claims of alternative medicine types as I am. But it is thought-provoking and entertaining, all that a book should be.

Get your DVR, free, free, free! I am the proud possessor of two ClubDISH Gift Cards that the Dish Network tells me I may present to my friends, family or neighbors. I assume that complete strangers are fine also. As related in my April 17 posting, I am an ecstatic convert to the Digital Video Recorder (DVR), which, sadly, has been renamed from the Personal Video Recorder that I bought some months back, because I love to call it my PerVerR, which has such a nice salacious ring to it. The first two requestees of these cards get: a free Dish Network premium satellite TV system with up to 2 free receivers, including a DVR receiver; free standard professional installation; a $50 credit on your first bill (OK, $49.99); plus 3 free months of the $49.99 Value Pak, whatever the heck that is. Oh, and me? I get $60 in programming credits for each dear friend, or complete stranger who instantly will become a dear friend, who signs up.

March 25, 2003

With all the serious insanity flying around the front page of the newspaper and CNN nowadays, it is great to be put in touch with someone who can laugh at it all. One of the (two or three) HinesSight readers, Randy Smith, told me about Neal Pollack's weblog, and I became an instant fan. Sucked into Pollack's web by his shameless self-promotion, I even bought both of his books via Amazon, where I learned that his first book was the inaugural title of McSweeney's Book, Dave Egger's (author of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius") publishing arm. And that's all I needed to know to buy it. Egger is a major talent, and so is Pollack, from even a brief read of his weblog.

January 24, 2003

If you aren't getting enough ads for penis enlargement and home business opportunities in your email inbox, Mark Morford has put together a marvelous compendium in his SFGate.com column. At least, I assume these are genuine excerpts from email ads. I've seen some of them, but Mark must get a lot more spam than I do. I also like his earlier piece, "Are Hummer Owners Idiots? More delightful proof positive that most SUVs are, in fact, morally repugnant. Go, America!" Apparently there is solid research to show that large SUV owners are more ego-driven and insecure than drivers of other cars. I say "large SUV owners" because Laurel drives a Honda CR-V, which is a decidedly small SUV. Therefore, we won't include her in Morford's scathing indictment. As a Volvo wagon driver, I can stand tall, morally speaking, with my fellow owners, and their "don't hug your kids with nuclear arms" bumper stickers.